Many EU countries have already taken concrete measures to address the smoking epidemic and have succeeded in lowering smoking rates in their populations. Several Nordic and Western European countries are therefore now in stage 4 of the epidemic. However, several countries in Southern, Central and Eastern Europe are in the early stages of the epidemic and are just now adopting a national strategy against smoking. What is particularly alarming for these countries is that adolescent and youth rates of smoking are very high and have been increasing.